Our Five Favorites From the News This Week
Our news roundup for the week of June 24 includes an idea to improve communications with parents, a reminder to review your financial controls, and a suggestion for your playground.
Communications Tip: Instead of sending out information and wondering if parents care or even read it, this group decided to ask parents what they wanted to hear. The parent group at the Roxborough (Colo.) [EL1] Primary and Intermediate School is reaching out on Facebook this week to ask parents what news they want to be getting from teachers. Parent volunteers for each grade will help facilitate this exchange.
Tip For Financial Control: With all the embezzlement stories continuing to pop up in the news, it’s worth reminding folks to review what financial controls they have in place. Just this week, there was a gut-wrenching story of a treasurer giving a tearful apology to her former group as part of her plea bargain for stealing money. It typifies how these cases are just awful for everyone—even, sometimes, the embezzler. We recommend that groups have a two-signature policy for checks. This can go a long way in preventing theft.
Volunteer Recruitment Idea: Like all good advertising, volunteer recruitment requests need to catch people’s attention. We have many documents and flyers on our File Exchange you can use to reach out to parents,
like this one (right), which received lots of likes and shares on Facebook this week. You’ll find it in the Volunteer Recruitment section of our File Exchange.Playground Idea: Is a playground renovation in your school’s near future? The folks at Parent Net Association tweeted a link this week to this piece on unstructured playgrounds in Norway and Denmark. The idea is to give kids basic structures, like wooden stumps or dragon sculptures, so kids can use their imaginations to a greater degree. The article suggests that in open-ended play, kids can learn all sorts of problem-solving, decision-making, and social skills. The playground photos might spark an idea for an addition to your school’s current setup.
Good Sports Award: Rain dates are pretty standard, but what do you do when a torrential downpour suddenly strikes when the Fun Fair is under way? Well, if you’re a volunteer for a PTO in Harvard, Mass., you jump into action. What had taken six hours to set up took merely a half hour to pull down and relocate to the nearby Bromfield School gym, the PTO reported. The Harvard Fun Fair continued indoors and was a big hit. It pays to have a back up plan.
